A Plague of Hearts, Patrick Whittaker [good books to read for 12 year olds TXT] 📗

he thought, looking up at the tall, bland buildings that lined the river. At least they’ve named you right.
Without bothering to see if the Grey Squirrel was following, he hurried along the quay and stepped onto a pavement infested with litter. He was faced with a ghost town masquerading as a high street. Glass shop fronts had devolved into wooden hoardings. Boxes of rotten fruit lay moldering against uprooted parking meters. And here and there a burnt-out car served as a monument to all the thousands of vehicles that had ever choked this road, vehicles that now roamed other streets.
Turn any corner, thought the March Hare, and the world will suddenly look normal again.
If he had closed his eyes, listened to the noises echoing from elsewhere, he could have believed that he was not standing on the site of a massacre.
The Grey Squirrel caught up with the March Hare, his short legs pumping like pistons to match the Hare’s pace.
‘I was here when it happened,’ said the Grey Squirrel. ‘I saw everything. It was awful. Just awful. The ZOMOs came here looking for a fight. It was a peaceful protest and they turned up with water cannon and shotguns.’
The March Hare was not interested. What did people expect the government to do when they were undermining the war effort? They should have known the ZOMOs would be sent in. That’s what riot police were for.
‘I suppose,’ he said testily, ‘that the police should have just stood by while these shops were looted and innocent people were driven from their homes?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said the Grey Squirrel. ‘We weren’t out to make any trouble. All we wanted to do was voice the legitimate opinion that war is morally indefensible. There wasn’t any riot until the riot police created one. They attacked us with tear gas and rubber bullets. You can’t expect people not to react to that amount of provocation. I saw this girl - she couldn’t have been much more than thirteen - having her face beaten to a pulp by three ZOMOs. That does something to you, seeing something like that.’
‘Let’s drop it. It’s not relevant any more.’
‘Not relevant? Less than a month ago, right here on this very street, the ZOMOs murdered eighteen people and injured hundreds more. And you say that’s not relevant?’
‘Not to me. What I care about is the fact that my employer has been arrested and right now is probably in some mouldy old dungeon being gang-raped. That is if the Secret Police haven’t just shot him in the back of the head and dropped him in a ditch.
‘I’m sorry if things got out of hand here, but what you were doing was illegal. In fact, with a war on, it was treason. Somehow you asked for it.’
‘Thanks a bundle pal.’ The Squirrel’s voice suddenly shot up in both volume and pitch. ‘That thirteen year old girl I told you about - the one whose face was destroyed. Do you know what she was doing? Do you know why three grown men took it upon themselves to ruin her looks forever? It was because she was standing up for herself and for zombies like you who are too smug and too bloody stupid to realise they’re being sold down the river by a gang of despots. I can’t even begin to conceive of that as being irrelevant.’
The March Hare stopped in his tracks. ‘Why don’t you shut the hell up! I don’t need lectures from you or anyone. And if you don’t stop bugging the hell out of me - ’
‘What?’ Dropping his books into the dreck-filled gutter, the Grey Squirrel thrust his paws into the pockets of his anorak and struck a defiant posture. ‘What can you do to me that the ZOMOs couldn’t? I wasn’t afraid of them and I’m not afraid of you.’
They stood facing each other, confrontation in their every breath, in the looks they exchanged, in the narrowing of their eyes. Neither wanted to be the one to strike the first blow. Neither wanted to back down. An impasse.
The March Hare’s temper was the first to cool. He waited until the tension had dropped to a bearable level, then he walked on.
Behind him, the Grey Squirrel stood looking down at his text books, at pages of elegant analysis lying in filth. One of the books had fallen open at a chart purporting to show the current distribution of wealth in the Kingdom of Hearts. A small man, representing the top two percent of the population sat upon a tall rectangular tower. While next to him, a jolly fat giant all but smothered a square which was barely bigger than a full stop. The giant was the proletariat astride a portion of wealth marked 7%.
‘Sod it,’ said the Grey Squirrel. ‘Who needs books anyway?’


5. The Cheshire Cat

There was a lizard in the kitchen. Doctor Ormus watched as it scurried from behind the gas cooker. Its legs moved with a grace that was almost mechanical - like the pistons of some invisible engine. Ormus could sense the dynamo buzzing in the lizard’s head, supplying power to a spine which spun at 36 revolutions per minute. The spine was connected to the legs through a complicated system of pulleys and gears. In half a day, the dynamo would wear down and the lizard would grind to a permanent halt.
As if sensing Ormus’ train of thought, the lizard paused in the canyon formed by his slippered feet. Ormus wondered if he could move fast enough to catch the creature. He had visions of his foot slamming down like a divine judgment, reducing flesh, blood and bone to one amorphous pulp. Assuming - of course - that the lizard was organic.
Recently, Ormus had begun to suspect that his psychotic episodes were founded in reality. Though not perhaps a reality known to most.
The door bell rang.
*
As the door to Doctor Ormus’ house swung open, the March Hare and the Grey Squirrel instinctively took half a step back. Both had had previous experiences with out-of-control experiments seeking outlet through this very door. The Grey Squirrel would never forget the day he had been enveloped in a yellow fog which had turned his fur a disgusting shade of green. Nor would the March Hare forget how he had been the first recipient of the Ormus Mark I Patent Self-Guided Suppository. On this occasion, however, the talkies were assaulted by nothing more than a faint scent of garlic and sulphur.
Doctor Ormus stared past his visitors as if surprised to find that his door opened onto this particular street. He focused on the suite of shops on the other side of the road. How long had that greengrocer’s been there? Dressed in a blue boiler suit, his back broad, his hands coarse, there was nothing to suggest that Ormus possessed one of the keenest intellects in the world. He was in his early sixties but beyond a few wrinkles and the odd grey hair his looks scarce betrayed his years.
‘There’s a lizard in my kitchen,’ he said. ‘And I’m wondering if it’s been sent here to spy on me.’
‘We’ve come on a mission of grave urgency,’ said the Grey Squirrel, determined not to get side-tracked into a discussion about reptiles. ‘It’s a matter of life and death.’
Ormus nodded. ‘Well yes. I suppose it would be. You’d better come in then.’
The March Hare was suddenly reluctant to do so. Ormus lived in a world of blueprints and half-finished machines. From attic to cellar, the house was crammed with mechanisms of every size and description; most of them tended to drip oil.
A creature dedicated to cleanliness and order, the March Hare had yet to enter this house without developing an urge to tidy it up. Looking past the Doctor, he observed the chaos in the hall. A stripped-down eternal combustion engine sat on the stairs. And the only furniture he could see - a mahogany sideboard - was cluttered with valves and dynamos and what might have been the insides of a gramophone.
‘Fine,’ said the Grey Squirrel, stepping aside and gesturing to the March Hare to go ahead.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Ormus. ‘I’m sure we’ve got lots to chat about. Do you know that tonight there’s going to be an eclipse of the moon? I’ll have to see if I can’t dig out a camera from somewhere.’
There’s already been an eclipse, the March Hare decided. Only some people don’t seem to have noticed.
Glumly, he followed Ormus into the kitchen.
*
A girl stood by the gas cooker. Dressed in jeans and an electric-blue blouse, she kept watch over a brass kettle which was beginning to steam.
The girl wore just enough make-up to emphasise the highness of her cheekbones, the depths of her eyes.
‘Julie,’ said Ormus by way of introduction. ‘The March Hare and the Grey Squirrel.’
‘Greetings,’ said the Grey Squirrel. He felt unaccountably awkward. It was something in the way the girl’s gaze seemed to go straight through him. She had a dream-like quality that reminded him of summer afternoons spent lying in a meadow.
The March Hare also sensed an other-worldliness about her. She was undeniably pretty, but it wasn’t that which made her so attractive. She’s like a goddess, he thought.
Julie stroked the tip of her nose. ‘The March Hare? I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since I got here.’
The March Hare blushed. ‘Surely you’re mistaking me for someone else? I’m nothing special - just your common or garden March Hare.’
‘The March Hare. I once heard a story about you which I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I laugh every time I think about it.’
‘If it’s that funny, I’m afraid it probably isn’t true.’
‘Doctor Ormus assures me that it is. Apparently you once set fire to the King’s bed - and very nearly to the King himself.’
The March Hare felt his cheeks grow warm. It was partly pride, partly embarrassment. The incident had cost him a very cushy job, but it had also briefly made him a minor folk hero. ‘The Knave of Hearts had a hand in that,’ he explained. ‘He’d greased all the candle holders. I was showing His Majesty to bed when the candle flew from my hand and onto his bed. I had to use a bottle of wine to put out the fire.’
‘And how did the King take it?’
‘Quite well actually. Which is more than can be said for the Queen who was in bed at the time.’
‘Did she get burnt?’
‘No. But I managed to singe the ear of her favourite teddy bear.’
Julie laughed.
The Squirrel blew a raspberry. ‘All very interesting, I’m sure. But we have more important things to discuss than your pyromaniac escapades.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Doctor Ormus. ‘I think it’s time we talked about the Knave of Hearts and the Royal Librarian. Shall we adjourn to the living room?’
*
The lizard was in the living room, perched on the sideboard between a crystal decanter and a large transformer. Doctor Ormus resisted the urge to make a grab for it.
Just a lizard, he reminded himself. Animals are not machines.
‘Sit down,’ he said, indicating a table in the middle of the room. It was stigmatised by the scratches and scars of old experiments. One corner bore an acid burn like an ugly bruise.
The